Your body in my mind in my body

Synaesthesia involves the curious experience of a sensation in one domain that is triggered by a sensation in another domain. It is surprisingly common – up to 1 in 23 will experience some type of synaesthesia, with the most common being the experience of colour for days of the week, followed by the experience of colour for letters (“grapheme-colour”).

Synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes alike tend to associate certain sounds with colours or shapes (e.g., “low” vowels or low-pitched sounds with dark colours). A group of researchers recently found that chimpanzees in Kyoto University’s primate Research Institute also spontaneously associate high-pitched sounds with light colour and low-pitched sounds with darkness (Ludwig, et al. 2011). This study showed, for the first time, that these “synaesthetic” associations were not necessarily a phenomenon related to language or even specific to humans.

What I’d love to see is whether animals – especially chimps or macaques – might experience the more poorly understood synaesthetic touch or synaesthetic pain. That is, feeling touch or pain when they see another animal or person experience the same sensation.

Mirror neuron systems have been speculated to be involved in the experience of synaesthetic touch. Mirror neurons were first discovered in monkeys, by chance, when Giacomo Rizzolatti and his colleagues were studying specific neurons in the brain involved in controlling hand and mouth actions. Low and behold, they found that the same neurons were active not only when the wired-up monkey reached out to grab a cup, but also when it watched another monkey or the experimenters reach out and grab a cup.

One study by Jamie Ward’s group at the University of Sussex found similar patterns of brain activity between their human touch synaesthete and non-synaesthetes, only the synaesthete’s activation of brain regions that process sensation appeared to exceed the threshold for actual perception of touch (Blakemore, et al. 2005). Empathy may also play a role, although from my own research the jury is still out about if and how empathy is involved (Giummarra & Moseley 2011).

So animals have mirror neurons. Some animals, like dolphins and elephants, even seem to have empathy and experience grief. So why shouldn’t they experience pain or touch when they see others experience those sensations, just as some people do.

At the end of the day, this type of synaesthesia is a whole new level of thinking about the “body in the mind”. You might even describe it as “your body in my mind in my body”. Or maybe we should call it “your body in your mind in my mind in my body” if empathy really does play a role in synaesthetic touch and pain. But perhaps that is just getting ridiculous.

About Melita Giummarra

Melita is a research fellow at Monash University in Melbourne, soon to start on an NHMRC clinical early career fellowship. Not only did Melita just finish her PhD (at Monash University) in 2011 with a big pile of publications, she also threw a couple of babies into the mix. Melita’s post-doc research will try to disentangle the relationship between the body, mind, pain and empathy/others. Clearly, Melita is proof that a Bachelor of Arts qualifies you for much more than burger flipping.

Ludwig VU, Adachi I, & Matsuzawa T (2011). Visuoauditory mappings between high luminance and high pitch are shared by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PMID: 22143791

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I recently discovered that I can smell things I see on the TV. I first became aware of this whilst I was trundling along on a cross trainer watching a cookery programme on the screen in front of me. They were frying garlic and onions and I realised I could actually smell it as if it was in the same room. I’m 55 and it’s the first time I’ve noticed this but I’m now experiencing it with lots of things I see in TV programmes. It’s a bit strange but certainly gives the viewing experience another dimension.

On a more serious note Professor of Psychology, Ian Robertson wrote an excellent book called “The Minds Eye” on this type of phenomenon ie pictures of lemons making viewers lips pukker, cringing at the the sight of nasty injuries etc. Presumably some sort of neuronal network construct but that’s for the clever people on this site!

definitely believe my darling zephyr (jack russell) feels my pain. as soon as i had my accident and hurt my coccyx/pelvic region he suddenly showed signs of pain (at the age of 4). He was diagnosed with rare case of arthritis in his lower spine. He’s on cortisone now and I have a peripheral stimulation device… we’re managing!!!!

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